Lights
by ShamiksXa
Summary: Nico's thoughts after Percy and Annabeth fell into Tartarus. Set between MoA and HoH. Beta'd by Karen Hikari and Rosycat.


My sister Bianca said that holding a grudge was a Child of Hades' fatal flaw. But what happens when you hold a grudge against yourself?

I had tried blaming others for making myself feel better. That never works, but one was desperate. Jason could've flown down to save them- heck, he could've controlled the wind to bring them up without going down himself! That was simple. Frank- Frank could've turned into a huge falcon or something to fly them back up. Hazel- gods it was hard to blame Hazel- but she could've changed the rocks and sides of the pit in which they fell in so that the would land not in the hell of Tartarus but instead, another layer of rock that they would not fall out of it, and could climb up with them. Maybe at that time, all of us were in such a panic that we couldn't think. After all, I could've shadow traveled them back up, couldn't I?

I think too technically. We were in a rush. No one had time.

The crow's nest was one of the most unappreciated parts of the Argo II. Sure, there was the scene of Camp Half-Blood in the "living room", the headphones and adjustable chairs, the adjustable temperature beds that you can choose from a memory foam, The Queen Purple®, or air and sea mattresses. Or the white carpet, the everlasting supply of warm water for showers, the view of the sea below, the sunsets and sunrises, the air conditioning, the heavenly scent of fresh saltwater and sunshine in every room, et cetera.

On the nest, you have an escape. On the crow's nest, you have a place for peace and somewhere to shut out the constant arguing and shouting. On the nest, the world is dark and grim and melancholic. On the nest, it is more welcoming than you would think as all you see is lights and bits of hope peeking through a vast, black nightmare.

Hope…

 _"Mother, what are those?" The child had whispered so long ago. The mother had turned to face her son._

 _Her face had some sort of beauty in it. Her eyes were a dark, chocolate brown- but once warm and full was now bitter and remorse. They seemed as if they could stare right through you, but somehow, not judgingly. Her Italian features had done her well if they were capable of melting the heart of the ruler of the underworld. But it wasn't exactly her looks that had captured and tormented Hades' heart, more so it had been her own spirit and soul. Maybe it was her love, her compassion, her generosity, and her ability to accept the future with open arms that charmed the king to lower his defenses and walls. Words could never properly describe her. "She was a maiden of the fairest beauty," as Poe had said._

 _She smiled melancholically. "Hope. Faith. Bits and pieces of it, all scattered through the night sky. With those, there would be no day. Different every night, far spread but together once again."_

 _"Then why can't you get rid of the night forever, made? Then the world could be gone off the evil and wild. That would solve the problems in the world, would it not?"_

 _She sighed, smiling in her child's innocence and mind. "I met a man once," her eyes glimmered- filling up with tears._

 _"Back in Europe. He would visit every 3 years. I was 11, then, when he saw him for the second time. Almost your age, bambino. When your nonna passed, I cried." The tears began to flow down her cheeks, now, from the memory, he had assumed before. "Do you know what she told me,_ mio _ Figlio?"_

 _She did not wait for an answer. "He told me. He said to me, as I cried over her dead grave, that happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light." she looked up at the massive, dark sky looming over the world. "Turn on the light for the world, my angel."_

If only, if only I could turn on the light for the world. If I could turn the light on for myself, as my mother had said to me.

But now she was dead and so was Bianca. I have no one to me anymore. Those endless nights of pain and fear on the floor in my room in Father's castle were gone but now replaced with a burden of thoughts and stress. Camp Half-Blood and Jupiter do not accept me as one of them.

I was a wanderer.

I _am_ a wanderer.

When Percy had informed me that Bianca had died, I broke. It's like I snapped somehow as if all the self-control and impulse broke free and unleashed itself to the world. As If the world had let the fear and repressed feelings out for a vacation, for now, absolute reason -except there was a reason- Bianca. The shred of hope I had clung on to obliviously had let me go and disappeared, dissolving into nothing.

I was so scared of my powers that I ran and hid in embarrassment. On that day, had I built and constructed walls around my heart, mind, and soul in record speed to keep myself safe. Those walls kept me in control, kept me stable, kept my impulse. But those walls hid me from the world and hid me from what I was. I shielded myself from the universe and what I thought "protection" was.

I guess Minos taught me a lesson by showing me the dark side of the world. When you think back, Minos did some good to me: he had taught me the importance of my voice; that I have one, that I can speak for others, that I can do whatever the hell I want in the world because I was carefree. I was my own individual person, that society did not have the power over my body. Society sets up standards and conforms me into something I'm not. Individualism was special.

Percy did nothing wrong, but at the time, I was outraged. I had trusted him, and he had failed. To be fair he did not promise me that he would keep Bianca completely unharmed, he said he would do his best.

I guess he did because, in the Underworld, Zoe had told me that Percy was a good person and was shaken up by her death and that he would gladly give up his own life for Bianca. Athena had told him that his fatal flaw was being too loyal- and it was, but I believe that another one was his ability to love, be generous, and compassionate.

It was safe to say that he was one of the kindest and greatest people in the world- almost so that the world doesn't deserve him. Zoe had claimed that he was different from other successful demigods because he was modest. Modesty would take him on a ride even further than any other-Heracles, Theseus, the original Perseus even. He had denied immortality for the one he loved.

One would die to get the opportunity to even see the gods, but he had denied, he had made the gods look like selfish, bastardly beings just because he had thought he was right. He had one wish for the rest of his life-it could've been anything from eternal wealth to superhuman strength, but he chose something to help everyone instead of himself.

He was so goddamned perfect it was unfair.

So when I had told Bianca that I had a… crush on him, she did not reply. She only nodded in sympathy. I guess when I ran away from her in tears of despair, it was because I didn't want sympathy. I wanted someone to tell me that it was normal, it was okay, it was fine. Someone to tell me that Percy didn't love Annabeth, someone to tell me that Percy accepted me, that Percy loved me. But those were lies, and lying to myself makes myself worse. So I learned to accept the fact that I was gay and I should deal with it. That maybe the sweat bringing, goosebump summoning, fear rising dreams were normal and it will eventually go away. They might not go away, though.

But one can survive.

One can push through until someone can reach out to save you, one can show you the purpose of life and show you love, one can make you happy, one can satisfy you, one can do it all if you let them in at the right time. One can reach into the pools of darkness that you hide in, the darkness that you enveloped yourself in. You can let your heart bleed out a little, can't you?

But what would Bianca want me to do?

Bianca would've said that mother would've loved me for who I was, even if it was not typical. She would have smiled and laughed the very same laugh that entered my dreams every good night. She would smile, a crescent curve of her lips and suddenly the world would seem to light up completely as if for a second, nothing mattered in the word because even with all the war, all the tears, all the tragedies of the damned world-all the evil in the world, there was her smile.

So when a father says, "You should've died instead of your sister," or "Your sister could have done better," I don't disagree. Because Bianca always understood and knew what to do. She was always there for everyone, always there when the hard times stuck. She knew the good versus the bad, what's right and what's wrong, what to keep in and what to let out to the world. She didn't need to hide everything to the world nor herself. She didn't need to shove and force down the torturous memories because she was scared. She would face Fear head first and charge at in demandingly, willingly. She would let down all her walls for the people she trusted because it was best for both of them. She was never wrong, so why should she be now?

 _Let down the fences, they do you no good. The stars and sky seemed to murmur._

 _Let down the walls, they do you no good. The wind seemed to whisper._

 _Let down the barriers, Nico, let them down. The world chanted and taunted, and for a moment, the child of the Underworld closed his eyes. He heard the voices of everyone in his life-his mother, his sister, his lover, his lover's interest, the rest of the disassembled Argo II, Olympus itself, Mother Earth herself, his father. Everyone in the camps, whether familiar or unrecognizable, they chanted._

So tears slipped from the young one's cheeks and suddenly he was the uncontrollable sobbing mess that he had been restraining and fighting off for oh-so-long. Finally, his burden was released and an eruption of desperate wails and feelings of pain was set into the dark, gloomy night. He had no impulse now, no self-control. He knew he had been doing wrong, he needed to tell someone, to stop hiding.

 _"Not now," he thought. "For now, the walls will stay up. Just for now."_

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 **(A/N): Wrote this a while ago. Short oneshot, I suppose. Read and Review! Beta'd by Karen Hikari and Rosycat, my two favorite people in the entire fanfiction world. All mentioned characters are not OCs. Owned by Rick Riordan: Probably for the better anyways.**


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